Booking shore excursions on ship with B2B cruises

[Packman1000]

We will be doing B2B cruises this summer in Europe.  I have $350 more OBC than my wife has.  They will not allow me to use my OBC to book an excursion for her until we are on the ship at which time our OBC accounts are combined.  Will I be able to book an excursion for her, using my OBC, for the second cruise as soon as we get on the ship for the first cruise (assuming it's available)?  If anyone else has had this issue, is there anything else we can try?  We book the Plus package and so OBC is only useful to us for booking excursions (and we prefer private excursions versus Princess, unless we can use our free OBC).

[partybarbie]

Even if you don’t get the credits until your second cruise, this is what you need to do.

 

Make sure your travel agent has linked the reservation numbers for both cruises.

 

Once you are on the ship, go to guest services and let them know to carry over the balance from your first leg to the second one. Make sure that they have your account and your wife’s account linked too. 

 

This way if you have a balance due from the first cruise, the credits from the second cruise will kick in and cover that balance. 
 

This is how we’ve done it and we haven’t had any problems with the credits being applied correctly.

[NavyVeteran]

7 hours ago, Packman1000 said:

We will be doing B2B cruises this summer in Europe.  I have $350 more OBC than my wife has.  They will not allow me to use my OBC to book an excursion for her until we are on the ship at which time our OBC accounts are combined.  Will I be able to book an excursion for her, using my OBC, for the second cruise as soon as we get on the ship for the first cruise (assuming it's available)?  If anyone else has had this issue, is there anything else we can try?  We book the Plus package and so OBC is only useful to us for booking excursions (and we prefer private excursions versus Princess, unless we can use our free OBC).

Who is the "They" who won't allow it?

 

I've used my OBC to book an excursion for DW pre-cruise. You cannot do it online - you have to call Princess. Their telephone agents can charge both excursions to the same account. Some agents don't know how to do so, and I've had to explain it to them. Just tell them to charge both excursions to the same account.

[Packman1000]

2 hours ago, NavyVeteran said:

Who is the "They" who won't allow it?

 

I've used my OBC to book an excursion for DW pre-cruise. You cannot do it online - you have to call Princess. Their telephone agents can charge both excursions to the same account. Some agents don't know how to do so, and I've had to explain it to them. Just tell them to charge both excursions to the same account.

I have called Princess excursion department twice and both times I've been told that I cannot use my OBC to pay for wife's excursions.  TA told me the same thing.  The first time, I asked to speak to a supervisor and was told I could not do this until I boarded the ship.

[M&L-Colorado]

I do not know about the pre cruise aspect, but on the ship I do know. The excursion desk only has the ability to work the one cruise that is taking place. In other words, once on the ship for a B2B you can book for the first cruise and only the first cruise. Then you can book excursions on the second part of the B2B once it starts. You may be able to do it one day early if they have loaded the info to the computers on the ship.

Holland America ships have the same bad setup.

[Packman1000]

10 hours ago, M&L-Colorado said:

I do not know about the pre cruise aspect, but on the ship I do know. The excursion desk only has the ability to work the one cruise that is taking place. In other words, once on the ship for a B2B you can book for the first cruise and only the first cruise. Then you can book excursions on the second part of the B2B once it starts. You may be able to do it one day early if they have loaded the info to the computers on the ship.

Holland America ships have the same bad setup.

Even if the shore excursion desk will not allow me to book for the second cruise, if our OBC is combined as of the first day of the first cruise, I should be able to book online with combined OBC.  Unless Princess shuts off on line booking a couple of weeks before a cruise.

 

I assume the reason that Princess has these rules in place must be to get couples to spend more cash and make it harder to use OBC.  And that they apparently don't apply rules consistently is very frustrating. 

[M&L-Colorado]

On line booking is shut off a few days before the start - not exactly sure but I think it is 2 or 3 days. The problem for B2B cruisers is that once you are on the ship you are considered to be there for both parts and on line booking for you is closed for even the second part. People who are only on the second part can still book on line until a couple of days before start but you cannot.

Maybe the IT problem for Princess and Holland America has recently been changed, so try it and see but this is how it has been consistently for the last couple of years.